For the record

We should clarify that while a Police Federation report into the policing of last August's riots speaks of "significant local technical difficulties" and a "significant communications failure", the Airwave police communication network did not "collapse", as we said in "Revealed: how police lost control of summer riots" (News). The National Policing Improvement Agency says the network was able to cope with 16,000 officers deployed in the London area. "Some officers had to wait a few seconds for their calls to get through, but, fundamentally, the network proved to be most resilient," it said in a statement.